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If you don’t have pet projects, I don’t think I want you

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Re: If you don’t have pet projects, I don’t think I want you

#21

Post by mxavier »

wyclif wrote: post #8
sehugg wrote: post #3

I used to think this too, but now my position is more nuanced. Certainly you need to have shown you have a passion for technology that goes beyond the norm, but there are other reasons you might not have lots of recent code outside of work. Maybe you have a family. Or maybe you have such a fulfilling current job that you don't feel the need to supplement it with extracurricular activities. Maybe you are interested in…

Maybe your employment contract states that anything you create is owned by your company so there is no code "outside of work." The question then becomes whether that is a contingency that has affected your passion or not.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting. Are there really contracts that say that any code you write, even if it is unrelated to your work and off-hours is the property of the company you work for? If so, that sounds like a horrible arrangement. That would be like a chef making a sandwich for himself at lunch and having to give it to the restaurant where he works instead.

Re: If you don’t have pet projects, I don’t think I want you

#22

Post by justincormack »

mxavier wrote: post #21
wyclif wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe your employment contract states that anything you create is owned by your company so there is no code "outside of work." The question then becomes whether that is a contingency that has affected your passion or not.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting. Are there really contracts that say that any code you write, even if it is unrelated to your work and off-hours is the property of the company you work for? If so, that sounds like a horrible arrangement. That would be like a chef making a sandwich for himself at lunch and having to give it to the restaurant where he works instead.

Yes there are. Big companies mainly, eg the News Corp contracts say that.

Re: If you don’t have pet projects, I don’t think I want you

#23

Post by chc »

The assumption that pet projects cannot be related to our work is weird to me. My full-time job title right now is "Newspaper Editor" — so you know the programming I do is not "work assignments" — but I have a whole host of tools I've written to automate the less-interesting parts of the job (from simple things like "calculate how many inches this will take" to more complicated things like "generate the files needed for this week's paper with these parameters and the ads placed in a configuration that will be both cost-effective and pleasing to our advertisers"). These are unquestionably work-related, but they're also unquestionably things I wrote just because I had an itch to scratch. I wanted them, so I made them. Why would my pet projects not be related to what I do?

Re: If you don’t have pet projects, I don’t think I want you

#24

Post by 0x12 »

If you have a life, I don't want you.

If you have a family, I don't want you.

If you have enough energy to do your work but not enough energy that after work you can work some more, I don't want you.

What is it that makes employers so enamored of people with 'pet projects'? Are they easier to take advantage of? Do they work long hours without expecting compensation? Does not having dependents mean that it's easier to pressure then in to working harder?

Really, having or not having pet projects (and I have plenty, don't worry) shouldn't matter even a little bit a the hiring time. You judge people on their ability as good as you can and what they do in their free time is simply none of your business.

So, if you ask me about my 'pet projects' I don't want you.

Re: If you don’t have pet projects, I don’t think I want you

#25

Post by timc3 »

mxavier wrote: post #21
wyclif wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe your employment contract states that anything you create is owned by your company so there is no code "outside of work." The question then becomes whether that is a contingency that has affected your passion or not.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting. Are there really contracts that say that any code you write, even if it is unrelated to your work and off-hours is the property of the company you work for? If so, that sounds like a horrible arrangement. That would be like a chef making a sandwich for himself at lunch and having to give it to the restaurant where he works instead.

Or if you have a standard contract in Sweden

Re: If you don’t have pet projects, I don’t think I want you

#26

Post by Aloisius »

0x12 wrote: post #24

If you have a life, I don't want you. If you have a family, I don't want you. If you have enough energy to do your work but not enough energy that after work you can work some more, I don't want you. What is it that makes employers so enamored of people with 'pet projects'? Are they easier to take advantage of? Do they work long hours without expecting compensation? Does not having dependents mean that it's easier to…

If you're hiring a software engineer and that person programs in their spare time, it is a pretty clear indication that they not only want to be a software engineer but also enjoys programming.

I used to ask this question, but now I've generalized it to asking if someone has any hobbies. I find passion in any area to a good indicator of the type of people I want to hire.

Re: If you don’t have pet projects, I don’t think I want you

#27

Post by jim_h »

I think when you're young with free time AND passionate about something, you should dive into it and learn as much as possible.

When you're older and if you have children, PLEASE PLEASE spend the appropriate time being a GOOD parent. It seems like the world is more work focused than ever and parents are not spending as much time with their kids as they should. We want good programmers, but we NEED good parents even more. Our future will eventually rely on the next generation of adults and not just good software..

Re: If you don’t have pet projects, I don’t think I want you

#28

Post by dlevine »

I have found that I usually start working on pet projects when I am dissatisfied with my job.

At my last job, I found myself working on several different extracurricular projects at once. I kind of realized that this meant it was time to leave (and do my own startup).

If I found someone who was supremely happy with his job, I would expect that any extra time would be spent at work, either making the product better or developing something else related to that company's business.

With that said, there is nothing wrong with working on a pet project, just that it can indicate something bad rather than something good.

Re: If you don’t have pet projects, I don’t think I want you

#29

Post by hackinthebochs »

Aloisius wrote: post #26
0x12 wrote: post #24

If you have a life, I don't want you. If you have a family, I don't want you. If you have enough energy to do your work but not enough energy that after work you can work some more, I don't want you. What is it that makes employers so enamored of people with 'pet projects'? Are they easier to take advantage of? Do they work long hours without expecting compensation? Does not having dependents mean that it's easier to…

If you're hiring a software engineer and that person programs in their spare time, it is a pretty clear indication that they not only want to be a software engineer but also enjoys programming. I used to ask this question, but now I've generalized it to asking if someone has any hobbies. I find passion in any area to a good indicator of the type of people I want to hire.

The problem is that programming in your spare time is not a necessary condition for enjoying or having passion for programming.

Further, its also discriminatory against people with families, or other hobbies, or against people who don't want to do the same thing that they did 40-50 hours during the week on the weekends too.

Re: If you don’t have pet projects, I don’t think I want you

#30

Post by sunkencity »

hvs wrote: post #13
sunkencity wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Put simply, we are looking for a .NET developer and one of the most important things that we look for is passion" How much passion is there in the .NET scene anyway? It's very business oriented, I'd expect developers to be more sort of corporate and better at time reporting. It's not like you have to be a hipster to churn out spreadsheet automation scripts.

It's sad that you associate "passion" with "hipster". I can't think of a more inaccurate characterization of a highly motivated developer. I also didn't get the impression that he was looking for a "hipster".

I am myself a passionate developer, that doesn't mean I have the time to make massive open-source projects just to get a better resume, because I'm neck deep in writing code for the company I have been running for the last 7 years. Not all people have the luxury to figure out something worthwhile do do and put on github.

I hate hiring people and putting a price tag on them, it's a cruel world but not every job interview has to be like American Idol if you know what I mean. Of course he should try to find people that care but that doesn't mean that the people that care has to write excellent code, or that they have to write tons of open source code. They just need to deliver at work.

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